Vinegar in the Laundry

After reading good things about it online, I thought that adding vinegar to my clothes, particularly my whites, would act as a whitener and color booster. I was hoping it would help remove stains and keep my clothes whiter longer.

Since I have a front loader, I added it to both the fabric softener spot and the bleach spot because that's what it sounded like the majority of people do. The bleach spot is for what I described above and the fabric softener spot would add it in the last rinse cycle and the clothes would come out softer.

Boy, was I disappointed! None of my stains seemed to have faded at all! My clothes are the same dingy white they've been since I didn't separate my clothes in college (it was cheaper to cram everything into one or two loads instead of two or three with colors separated). So I figured it was a total bust and through them in the dryer anyway.

When I took them out of the dryer, I was surprised. Despite the fact that the vinegar in the bleach section seemed to do nothing, the vinegar in the fabric softener section did. My clothes were noticeably softer. I also noticed that this load (the only load I added vinegar to) was not nearly as static-y as my other loads. This is especially nice because we are starting to approach the winter months and static drives me crazy! I had been using balled up aluminium foil (you can read about it in a previous post) but I was looking for an alternative method.

So basically, I think I'll keep using the vinegar as a fabric softener and to make my clothes less static-y but when it's summer again and I don't have to worry about static cling, I'll probably take a hiatus from it. I'm still experimenting with other things like baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to help get out stains.